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Archive for June, 2009

Design Crush – edition 11

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Once upon a time, web design was just boxes and text with a few ugly hyperlinks splashed about creating highly functional but fairly uninteresting and unattractive sites. These were the dark ages, and now more and more inspiration for web design comes from everyday objects. A trend that has been occuring for a while and looks like it’s here to stay is using everyday tactile objects and surfaces and recreating them online. But this isn’t a completely brand new idea; from using images of folders to save files to and naming a computer ‘desktop’, there has always been an association with computers and traditional objects.

Imitating natural materials for backgrounds is becoming a popular design trend. Some sites have been using wood and paper to give a comfortable and familiar feel. The use of tactile material can also give a site a retro feel that breaks the mould from the usual sites we so often come across.

Replicating everyday objects like desktops, scrapbooks and pin boards are popular within web design to create fun, friendly and quirky layouts. This style however, looks easier to create than it actually is and requires a large amount of talent and time. Get it wrong and it can easily look unprofessional and outdated, get it right and you create an enviroment in which your users can explore and enjoy.

Here are some good examples of using everyday objects and surfaces to create successful web design:

Tags: design inspiration, design trends, graphics design, textures, web design, websites

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The Social Media Diaries | Habitat getting it wrong

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Q. How to get Twitter completely wrong?

A. Use an international conflict for your own benefit.

If you haven’t already heard then you will no doubt be astonished to learn that fashionable furniture gurus Habitat has been utilising the current conflict in Iran for their own benefit on Twitter. Sounds a bit crazy huh? They have in fact been using hashtags such as #Iran and #Mousavi to get their name and products into the hotly debated discussions going on in Twitter about the current issues in Iran.

The company deny that they authorised these tweets, which may be true but it does not excuse them from their lack of respect to what is a serious issue, one which they have blatanly used for spamming purposes. Looking at their history of tweets it is clear to see that Habitat are just big fat spammers, and on this occasion they got it very, very wrong.

In the past Habitat have used top trending topics such as #apple and #iphone linking them to products and pages on the Habitat website that are in no way related to the #hastag. In a sort of apology sort of admission to the #Iran fiasco Habitat stated:

The top ten trending topics were pasted into hashtags without checking with us and apparently without verifying what all of the tags referred to. This was absolutely not authorised by Habitat.

This demonstrates that the company have a complete lack of control over their online activites and have completely been abusing social media tools such as the Trending Topics for their own benefit, and in this instance their arrogance and complete lack of concern has backfired, resulting in outrage across the net.

This debacle highlights the issue of whether businesses should be using social media tools such as Twitter at all. We at 360innovate are firm believers that social media networks can be used for businesses purposes. However, businesses looking to go down that route, who do not seek the use of an agency, should ensure that they think about which social media tools are most suited to your business. In this instance choosing to go onto Twitter was a logical choice for Habitat, many B2C companies are using Twitter very well to connect to their target audience and if well planned relationships can be formed between business and consumer. Habitat failed to achieve this not only by abusing the #hashtags but by misunderstanding what Twitter is all about. Instead of using Twitter as an engaging communication tool Habitat used it as vehicle for self promotion, in the process losing all credibility and the interest of their target market- we really don’t need to be told 5 times about a 20% off sale…

Which leads onto the next point anyone looking to use any form of social media for a specific purpose must really think about what they are hoping to gain and plan how they are going to achieve it. Your business may be on the most talked about social network in town but if your floundering around in the dark you may actually do more harm than good- Habitat being a prime example of this!

Image courtesy of Marketing Pilgrim.

Tags: b2b, habitat, social media, twitter

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Accessible AJAX forms with jQuery

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Unless you’ve buried your head in the sand for the last few years, you must have noticed the increased use of Javascript on the web.

One of the most common criticisms levelled against the increased use of Javascript is that it makes accessible web design difficult, or even impossible. This doesn’t have to be the case though – let’s take a look at how progressive enhancement techniques can improve usability without sacrificing accessibility.

The concept is straightforward – make sure that everything works without Javascript, then use Javascript to add the ‘icing on the cake’.

Basically, all the content and functionality on your site should be accessible to your users, regardless of whether Javascript is switched on or off. This not only has benefits for accessibility, but for SEO too.

In this example, I’m going to take a very plain, simple form and add a little bit of magic!

The HTML

<div id="form">
    <form action="" method="post" name="contact-form">
        <label for="name">Your name:</label>
        <input type="text" name="name" id="name" />

        <label for="email">Your email address:</label>
        <input type="text" name="email" id="email" />

        <input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit" />
    </form>
</div>

<div id="results"></div>

The jQuery

$(document).ready(function(){
    $('form[name="contact-form"]').submit(function(event){
        event.preventDefault();

        var myName    = $('input#name').val();
        var myEmail   = $('input#email').val(); 

        $.post('process.php', {name: myName, email: myEmail},
            function(data){
                $('div#results').html(data).fadeOut().fadeIn();
            }
        )
    })
})

Hopefully there’s nothing too scary in the HTML; a couple of input fields and an empty div that will hold our results.

In the javascript, the important parts are lines two and three. Notice that we’re intercepting the form submission, and passing the event as an argument to the following function.

Next, we call event.preventDefault(). This stops events from bubbling up the DOM, in this case, preventing the form from being submitted.

Next, we fire off an AJAX request to process the form. In this case, we’re just echoing out the values that have been entered by the user, but this could be a contact form, a login form, an ‘add to cart’ button – the possibilities are endless!

You can view the demo here.

Note that the form works with or without javascript. Test it yourself by turning javascript off!

I hope this explains the basics of progressive enhancement. For further reading, check out wikipedia’s entry on the subject.

Tags: AJAX, jQuery

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Price or Reputation…

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

What are consumers looking for? A new survey conducted by Webcredible, a user experience consultancy, has brought up some interesting findings. While for many years, consumer habits of online shoppers where largely driven by price, it has now been identified that reputation may be the biggest driving factor.

Apparently 28 per cent of the 1,300 people who were polled between April and June said that they are more likely to be persuaded to make a purchase online by the reputation of the site , not it’s prices. This indicates that consumers are largely concerned with the security of a site when making purchases.

Even with the credit crunch, price came second to reputation in what persuades consumers to buy online with a total of 26 per cent. This shows that people want a brand they can trust who will be more likely to offer better customer care. So with online fraud being at the forefront of many online buyers minds, having a safe and reliable site is what they are wanting over the best prices.

The design of a site (16 per cent) and ease of use of the site (15 per cent) were up next in persuading users to buy online. The last result of 4 per cent shows that consumers are least likely to be persuaded to purchase online with special offers.

Overall, if you are wanting to get the most out on your online retail site take some tips from Mrudula Kodali, Senior Consultant at Webcredible who states:

“Given that so many online shoppers are affected by all these factors, persuasion needs to be a key focus for ecommerce sites. Retailers must ensure that their websites are well designed, easy to use and well-optimised for search and combine this with competitive pricing and a well-built reputation. Only then will they be able to really maximise revenues by making the most of these online shoppers that are open to persuasion.”

But what are you driven by when making online purchases, price or reputation?

Tags: marketing, new survey, online retailers, websites

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Real Time Search, No Flux Capacitor Needed!

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Recently there has been a lot of talk about real time search. But what is real time search and what makes it different from the search we have come accustom to? Well its very simple, real time search is when search results are found from micro blogging, social media, and many other web posts to supply you with the most up to date information literally seconds after it has been published. However, with real time search comes issues like relevance of results. Unlike search, where the results are mostly show in accordance to their relevance, with real time search there are no guarantees as to what shows up. But for most people, getting the most up to date buzz on a hot topic is very appealing even if the results are not quite what you were expecting.

Here are a few real time search engines that have gotten a fair bit of attention lately:

OneRiot scans Twitter and Digg to give real time search results. It shows you the trending topics as they develop keeping you in the loop of the goings on in these two popular social sites. Also, it shows you the most shared posts on Twitter, to let you know what everyone is talking about.

Tweetmeme searches Twitter for links that best suit your search. The results are ranked in tweet popularity and you can define your search by the hour, day and week, depending on how fresh you want your results.

FriendFeed searches though all of your friends posts from different sites. This is quite unique as it only gives results from people you are connected with. However, it may be more opinion driven results rather than factual. But it gives you a good insight into your friends activities.

Scoopler mixes live tweets and popular content in the results. This real time search engine actually shows the tweets as they are being posted giving you a constant stream of new information. Also the sites content is laid out coherently making it user friendly and a pleasant interface to use.

Social Mention is great for keeping an eye on who is talking about your brand or company. It searches through social media to supply you with results that are up to date and shows you what sentiment the mentions are, such as positive or negative. It also tells you the top keywords your brand or company is being found for.

Collecta monitors the update streams of news sites, popular blogs and social media sites including Flickr to give you search results that are up to the minute.

If you are wanting to search the web and get the freshest buzz on what’s going on, what’s being said, and what’s hot this minute, real time search is definately for you. Try these site out to see what ones best suit your needs. If you know of any other effective real time search engines then let us know.

Tags: Online Marketing, real time search, search engines, search results

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20 questions to help you prepare for an SEO meeting

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Fairly recently Laura did a great post on How to prepare for a design meeting.. Today, I wanted to add to that by providing some detail on how to get the best out of an initial SEO meeting.

When entering into a relationship with an SEO company, you are entering into a partnership whereby both yourself and the company have a part to play. While the SEO company will have an in-depth knowledge of all things relating to online marketing, you know your business & products inside out. In order to effectively market those products and services; a good SEO company will likely ask some pretty probing questions of your business. While the day to day products are fresh in our minds, the bigger picture stuff can take a bit more thought, in order to help you get the most out of your relationship with your SEO company; we’ve put together the following list of commonly asked questions:

These questions will usually fall into three main categories;

Your Business

Be prepared to talk about your company background & history
- What is the company mantra/ethos?
- Who are the key stakeholders?
- How is your brand perceived within the wider industry?
What are your key products & services?
- Are there any golden products which account for larger proportions of revenue?
- Are there any key products currently under performing?
What are your business’ aims & objectives?
- Think about whether these meet the SMART mnemonic.
Who are you main competitors?
- These may be people you come up against in pitch situations
Who is the target market?
- Have you ever done any demographic profiling?
What do you wish to achieve with online marketing?
- Are there any specific business areas your looking to promote?
- Are there any specific business areas your looking to promote?
Do you have any specific targets already in mind?
- In order to discuss specific revenue or traffic targets and how achievable these are; your seo company will probably want to weigh up current site performance

Previous Marketing Activity

Do you have a specific marketing/online marketing budget in mind?
- Sometimes a sensitive issue but when discussed openly, it allows your SEO company to fit a custom solution around your budget
Have you previously engaged in online marketing?
What marketing channels (online & offline) do you currently utilise?
- This should include SEO, PPC, email marketing, brochures, leaflet drops etc..
- Try to also provide dates, this will enable your SEO company to analyse peaks & troughs in your traffic levels.
If SEO has previously been used, what keywords was the campaign targeting?
If so, what were the results of such activity?
- Was it successful?
- What areas were you left dissatisfied with?
Do you have an up to date marketing schedule? If so it would be beneficial to bring this with you.
- From this, your SEO company can align their online campaigns around your existing marketing campaigns helping to maximise impact
Is the vast majority of new business currently gathered via online or offline channels?
- What is the current split?
- Are you looking to increase the contribution of online?

The Site Itself

What role would you anticipate the website playing in reaching the company objectives?
Who is responsible for overseeing changes to the website?
- Does this require third party involvement or can the changes be implemented in-house?
Is there any specific change control process to affect change within the site?
- If this is the case, when are the next release dates?
What (if any) analytics package is being used? It may be beneficial to grant your search partner access.
- Common analytics packages include Google Analytics, Lynchpin and Site Intelligence
Are there any problem areas already identified within the site in terms of promoting/selling products and services?
- Try to think about why you went looking for a search marketing company in the first place
Are you happy with current site functionality?

Think there’s anything we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments!

Tags: General Chat, SEO Articles

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Design Crush – edition 10

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Blogs play a major role within the web; gone are the days where blogs were just for the normal individual who wanted to write whatever was on their mind. Most companies not only have a website but now utilise blogs too. More and more corporate companies from all sectors of business are utilising blogs to not only advertise their products or services, but to give their brand a voice. And with this surge of new blogs, came new design challenges.

Designing for blogs is not just about using the thousands of free templates that are so readily available or just sticking a colourful header graphic at the top. Blog design is about creating a solid visual structure, with a thoughtful hierarchy of content elements and should be able to connect the content of the site to the presentation.

For this to be achieved, you need to think about accuracy, simplicity and a good use of typography and illustration. Because blogs are content based, mostly being text, getting the typography right is the most important element of blog design.

There is a large difference between corporate blogs and personal blogs. With corporate blogs, they are often made to look the same, if not very similar to the main website. This allows them to tie into the main corporate identity to amplify the company’s personality. Good examples of company blogs can be seen from Econsultancy.com and Topshop.co.uk

However, personal blogs take a slightly different design slant, with many designs using slightly more adventurous styles to create attention-grabbing and unique identities online. Because of the nature of blogs, being that they are an expression of someone’s thoughts, likes and dislikes the designs often reflect this and become a very personal thing. Good examples of personal blog design can be seen from ilovetypography.com and bubblessoc.net

Overall, blog design relies heavily on how the content and text is structured and treated and for what purpose the blog is being used for, whether it is part of a company’s website or a standalone blog.

Tags: blog design, blogs, design, typography

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The year of mobile marketing

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

When is the year of mobile marketing going to be with us? asks Andrew Thomson, Head of Natural Search at 360innovate. Well Andrew, considering you are the head of online marketing I was hoping you would have the answer!

Mobile marketing is, as the name suggests, marketing on or with a mobile device. Research by Orange mobile phone company has revealed that 81% of mobile users access mobile media once a week and 70% are attracted by interactive marketing formats. Of the participants taking part; 81% admitted to using mobile media more than once a week with 46% using it daily and it was revealed that the average of mobile media users was 36, further to this a high proportion (55%) of people browsing the mobile internet do so with no specific agenda (Orange).

Currently the most popular forms of mobile marketing are click-through advertisements and voucher redemption codes (Mobile Marketing Association), however, many companies are now launching transactional mobile sites so consumers can purchase whilst on the move. UK online retailers have been fairly slow to jump on the m-commerce bandwagon, those still resisting the allure of the mobile take note of the success Japanese retailers are having- up to 25% of a retailers sales can come from m-commerce (Internet Retailing).

One device that is being touted as ‘having brought m-commerce to life’ is the IPhone, who currently have over 50,000 applications many of which are retailing application (Economist). With so many different features the IPhone has revolutionised the way mobile marketing works providing customers with a completely unique shopping experience. The main one that sticks in our head is Amazon Remembers, download the application, see something you like, take a quick picture of it, send it to Amazon and Amazon with then send you an email identifying what the item was and a link to where you can buy it on Amazon. Applications such as this are brilliant because they are fun, informative and involve interaction with the customer; by utilising m-commerce, and integrating it into offline marketing, in such novel ways retailers can not only attract new customers but keep them returning.

The main drawback of accessing websites on mobile devices is usability; adaptation from web to mobile often results in poor user experience due to the wide diversity of mobile devices and carriers. Perhaps this maybe why IPhone has garnered so much attention from consumers and retailers alike; there is no need to bother with seperate mobile websites retailers can develop shopping applications that customers can access instantly and which is guaranteed to work. However, there is hope for all us non-IPhone people some companies are going to the effort of creating websites that can be accessed by other mobile devices, for example www.laterooms.com, who have established a website where customers can make bookings on their mobile.

One high street giant that is hoping to reap the benefits of m-commerce is Marks and Spencers who are launching their own ‘Back to School’ mobile marketing campaign. It will involve the launch of a mobile internet shopping site and promotional vouchers which can be redeemed via the mobile site.

In conclusion, UK retailers are still lagging behind their US and Japanese counterparts with regards to creating mobile enabled shopping carts, but we are slowly starting to integrate mobile into our marketing mix, over the past year we have seen several high profile companies featuring SMS in advertising and utilising it as a form of direct mailing. But until we start seeing more interactive mobile websites and exciting applications for phones of all models this year of online marketing may have to wait….

Tags: m-marketing, mobile marketing

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Archive for June, 2009

Design Crush – edition 11

Accessible AJAX forms with jQuery

The HTML

The jQuery

Price or Reputation…

Real Time Search, No Flux Capacitor Needed!

20 questions to help you prepare for an SEO meeting

Design Crush – edition 10

The year of mobile marketing

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